User:Hystor/sandbox

This is a TEST. Dark Infrastructure. Two recent articles in the Communications of the ACM (CACM)(1, 2) discussed 'Bufferbloat.' This term was introduced by Jim Gettys to describe 'dark buffers of the Internet.'  Buffers are extra storage capacity for holding data temporarily. Since we are discussing digital computers, by convention, buffer storage are sized in terms of bytes. The byte is the 8-bit unit of storage. Prior to 1990, computer storage was expensive enough that 'buffers' for temporary storage of data in transit were minimal. In the early years of computing when 'main memory' was the only non-permament storage available, buffers took some chunk of this area. The two main reason why 'buffer' were needed are data quantity and synchronicity between different devices. Data quantity (or volume) is simply this: if someone sends you 10-bytes of data and you only have 8-bytes of storage, you are going to lose 2-bytes of data. Synchronicity is when two devices which may operate at different speeds have to exchange data.

(1) CACM (0001-0782) 2012 Jan v55 #01 "Bufferbloat: Dark Buffers in the Internet" by Jim Gettys & Kathleen Nichols, p57-65.

(2) CACM (0001-0782) 2012 Feb v55 #02 "Bufferbloat: What's Wrong with the Internet" a discussion with Vint Cerf, Van Jacobson, Nick Weaver & Jim Gettys, p40-xx.